Beyond Rain of Gold is the incredible story of acclaimed author Victor Villaseñor’s initiation into the spiritual realm.

Decades ago, after penning the nonfiction epic Rain of Gold, the writer embarked on a life-changing journey. In the process of ensuring that his family’s saga would be published as the authentic, true account it was, Villaseñor forged a sacred bond with his father and his indigenous ancestors, who were guiding him from the Other Side. The book eventually became a national bestseller and an enduring favorite of millions of readers.

Yet the story doesn’t end there. Villaseñor’s connection with the Spirit World continued to deepen, awakening him to the ongoing miracles inherent in everyday living. He discovered that his life had suddenly taken on a magical quality, with events occurring that transcended the boundaries of what is normally considered “reality.”

A series of mystical encounters with Spirit convinced Villaseñor that not only is there no firm line between life and death—but that the time has come in our collective “human-story” to usher in a new era of abundance, peace, and harmony on our beloved Mother Earth and among all of humanity!

Similar to Carlos Castaneda’s body of work, this exciting, raw, and honest book courageously delves into altered states of consciousness that exist alongside ordinary reality . . . ultimately revealing the Spiritual Wisdom that is available to each and every one of us.

Beyond Rain of Gold will truly transform the way you see the world—
on both a personal and planetary level!

Victor Villaseñor is the author of the national bestsellers Rain of Gold, Thirteen Senses, Burro Genius, and Crazy Loco Love, the last two of which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; as well as other critically acclaimed books, such as Wild Steps of Heaven and Macho!, which was compared to the best of John Steinbeck by the Los Angeles Times. He is also the author of five ancestral-themed bilingual children’s books, and has written several screenplays, including the award-winning The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

Villaseñor, a gifted and accomplished speaker, continues to live on the North County San Diego ranch where he grew up, and is currently writing the multiple-book saga that starts with Beyond Rain of Gold. The original Rain of Gold trilogy is now being developed for a seven-part HBO miniseries. For more information, please visit: www.victorvillasenor.com.

Excerpt:

Preface
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always liked maps. It’s a quick, easy way to travel across the country or around the world. Then later when I was learning how to drive, I’d like to get a map of where my family and I were going on our next road trip. I’d study it, imagining the terrain, the cities, the road itself; and after having done so, I’d have a pretty good idea where to stop to eat and get gas. My parents, who’d already taken these trips many times, were often amazed by my knowledge.

Maps, I soon found out, were like guides, and could actually prepare me so well for our road trips that at times I’d almost feel like I was psychic, because as we drove over a pass and down into a long valley, I’d get this strange feeling that I’d already been here.

This is what I am now proposing: that you look at this book you hold in your hands as a guide, as an ancient map, as a gift from Indigenous People who can still remember la vida before it was taken over by civilization—a Collective Cellular Memory within each and every one of us showing us where we humans came from; where we are going; and how to live our lives as happy, relaxed, openhearted human beings in harmony with OUR GORGEOUS PLANET!

So here we go! Put on your helmets and fasten your seat belts, because individually and collectively we are now going on a road trip, guided by a map of true stories, into the INCREDIBLE WORLD OF YESTERYEAR when we were all Indigenous People and LIVED A LIFE FULL OF MAGIC AND WONDER AND DAILY MIRACLES!

Truly, we were not ignorant savages, as we’ve been led to believe, but instead people full of faith and wisdom and an understanding of life far beyond words and reason. So grab hold of your seats, because together we are about to BURST INTO A COLLECTIVE JOURNEY 78,000 years into our past and 26,000 years into our future. And this ain’t science fiction, but the REALITY with which I was raised by my parents, who, in turn, were raised by their indigenous mothers, who were both Christians and yet combined their Christianity with their natural indigenous Spirituality, and hence came out with a whole other understanding of what it is to TRULY ACTIVATE the Kingdom of God that’s within each of us!

Who was this 19th child, born to his mother when she was 50 years old? She took an oath before God not to make the same mistake with her last child as she’d done with her other masculine children and leave his raising to the men. No, she’d raise him in the old Indian way, as a woman for the first seven years of his life, so he’d grow up in awe of women and have the miraculous experience of assisting his older sisters and cousins in giving birth.

Who was this man who was born in 1901 or 1903 and announced his own death on New Year’s Eve, and then actually passed over to the Other Side three months later, at home in bed in California and surrounded by familia?
I mean, who was this man, this human being, Juan Salvador Villaseñor, whom I called mi papa for 48 years of my life?
***
I went to the back of the house to get the shotgun.

It was New Year’s Eve 1988, and our casa grande in Oceanside, California, was full of friends and family. Everyone was having a good time. Our two boys, David and Joseph, 12 and 10, were running in and out of the house with their whole tribe of cousins, blowing horns and whistles and shouting to the heavens. Our pony, Little Bit, was with us on the back patio, all dressed up with ribbons and a big pink and blue hat. He wasn’t frightened by all of the wild commotion. In fact, he loved it and kept prancing around so much that we figured he must’ve been a parade horse or something like that in his youth. I handed the 12-gauge shotgun to my dad.

“Does it have birdshot in it?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I took out the heavy loads.”

“Good,” he said, “I don’t want shooting up in the air and bullets coming down and hitting people on the head.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing when my dad stood up with the shotgun in his hands and shouted, “VIVA LA VIDA!” Then he pointed the weapon to the sky and shot off the big 12-gauge once, twice, three times!

Quickly, all the kids screeched and followed up with horns and whistles; and a couple of the parents set off fireworks, lighting up the sky with bright, colorful light.

“Lupe!” shouted my dad to my mother. “Come over here and let’s make the kiss, querida!”

Holding hands, my wife, Barbara, and I watched my parents hug and kiss. It felt really wonderful to see two old people still being happy together and having so much familia running all around them.

It was about 2 A.M. when my dad put down his big cigar, lifted up his last beer for the night, and said that he had an announcement to make. The kids had been put to bed, and most of our guests were gone. Only Barbara and I and my sisters and their husbands were left, and we were putting things away.

“This year,” he said to all of us, “I’m going! My job is done here on Earth, and it’s time for me to go!”

“Go where?” one of my brothers-in-law asked.

I was putting the folding chairs away, and others were bagging up the leftovers.

“To the Other Side,” he said. “I miss mi mama very, very much, and I’d like to go and see her again and catch up on things.”

Someone laughed. “You mean catch up on how things are up in heaven?”

“Yes,” he said, with tears coming to his old, wrinkled-up eyes. “I’ve had a good life here on Earth, and now I want to go.”

“That’s exactly why I say this,” he said, turning to me, “because I am in perfect health. I don’t want to stay around here till I get sick and can’t wipe my own ass. I want to go now while I still feel good and strong, just like my mother did and her father did, too.”

“You mean to tell me, Papa, that they, too, died when they were in good health?” I asked.

“Of course. That’s what people always used to do before all this stupid, ignorant new medicine. Even dogs know better than to stay around too long. They eat some grass, then find a nice, quiet place to lay down to rest and fall asleep. Then bingo, they are gone and on the Other Side, where there’s a whole family of their ancestors waiting for them, just as there is waiting for us, too.”

“Mama, talk to him,” I urged, stacking a few more chairs. “Papa is talking nonsense.”

My mother shook her head. “No, he isn’t,” she said in a calm, even voice. “It’s not just us humans and the animals who know when our time has come, mijito; the plants know it, too.”

“The plants?” I inquired.

“Sure,” she replied. “After all, aren’t they also part of God’s Creation?”

Well, I couldn’t really disagree with this, and I didn’t want to get into another argument with my parents, so I said nothing and just kept working. I figured that this was just some crazy 2 A.M. talk that would be forgotten by morning. But then, 70-some days later, on the 15th of March of that same year, my dad really did pass over to the Other Side, at home in bed and surrounded by familia.

I was stunned!

I mean, how could he have known about his impending death?

Or, more precisely, was it that he’d willed himself to die? Or was it simply like my mother had said—that it wasn’t just people and animals who knew when it was their time to go—that plants also knew, because they, too, were part of God’s Creation.

And she’d said it so calmly, like this was everyday knowledge.

And so the last two and a half months of my dad’s life became some of the happiest days of my parents’ lives. They’d spend hours talking together, and my mother would prepare some of my dad’s favorite Mexican dishes, like carne de puerco con nopalitos en salsa roja—loin of pork in red sauce, with cactus leaves freshly cut from our own cactus plants. I’d watch my dad, and he’d smell what my mother had brought him with so much love and gusto. Then he’d put only a little bit to his lips, tasting it. My mother would watch him, humming peacefully. When he was done, having eaten very little, he’d take my mother’s hand, thanking her and kissing her fingertips, the whole time gazing with so much amor at his wife of 60-some years.

Oh, seeing this, I’d have to stop to take in several deep breaths. I mean, who were these people, my parents, who’d been born in the mountains of Mexico and had known nothing but dirt floors in their homes and burros and goats, and their entire villages had been without electricity or sewage or running water? They’d come to the United States during the Mexican Revolution of 1910 with nothing but hunger in their stomachs and love for their familias in their hearts, and yet they’d somehow had the power of mind to triumph against all odds.

At times it almost seemed to me like my parents had come from another planet, or at least from an entirely different era, which had obviously been so full of love and confidence in life that I (and my modern mind) had a difficult time understanding. I mean, who was this woman, my mother, Guadalupe Gomez Camargo, who’d come from la Barranca del Cobre, the Copper Canyon of northern Mexico—a place so huge and desolate that even today there are still some native people who have never seen an automobile—and who’d had the calmness of spirit to stay by my dad’s side as he grew weaker and weaker and closer to death each day?

And who was this man, my father, Juan Salvador Villaseñor Castro, who’d come from Los Altos de Jalisco—farther south in Mexico than my mother’s birthplace, where the earth was red and the finest tequila was made—and who’d had the insight and confidence to announce his own death?

I didn’t know what to say, or think. I began to suspect that maybe, just maybe, there was a lot more to living life than I knew, because no matter how many times my parents had tried to explain to me that I was missing the point when I had interviewed them over the last ten years for the book I’d written about them, I still hadn’t quite understood.

This excerpt is taken from the book Beyond Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor. It is published by Hay House (April 1, 2011).